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Otis McDonald, one of four plaintiffs in a gun control case stemming from a Chicago handgun ban, takes part in a news conference in front of the Supreme Court. On Monday, the court ruled that for the first time that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments.

Court ruling threatens gun laws

But on Monday, she formally agreed with Breyer’s minority opinion criticizing the ruling. “I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s text, history or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as ‘fundamental’ in so far as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes,” Breyer wrote.

Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, called it “shocking” that Obama, “who campaigned as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, would nominate a Supreme Court nominee who did a 180-degree turn and voted against freedom and against the Constitution.” Some are calling for the NRA to more vocally oppose Kagan’s nomination; the organization has yet to publically announce its position on Obama’s latest nominee and may not do so until after her Senate confirmation hearings are over.

“Elena Kagan is firmly in the anti-gun camp,” says John Velleco, a spokesman for Gun Owners of America. “She’s probably going to say [during her confirmation hearing] just like Judge Sotomayor said that the court has ruled and she’ll abide by the ruling. But when these cases like McDonald v. Chicago come up, I believe she is going to be on the side of restricting the right to bear arms. “I think they ultimately opposed Sonia Sotomayor,” Velleco said of the NRA. “Hopefully, they’ll do the same thing here. If anything, Elena Kagan will be worse for the Second Amendment than Sotomayor. The president may as well have nominated someone from the Brady campaign to the Supreme Court.”

Though the ruling is a clear victory for the rapidly strengthening gun rights lobby, gun-control activists are hoping that it will be a symbolic rather than a substantive victory.

Alito seemed to agree. Despite “doomsday proclamations” from the other side, he wrote, “incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms.”

“When the constitutional dust settles, gun laws will be upheld,” said Dennis Henigan, of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence. “Going forward, it will be difficult to argue to legislators that reasonable laws to prevent guns from getting into the hands of dangerous people will be unconstitutional.”